More UDD in the wild

I just discovered an amazing example of some User Driven Design in the wild.

Recently Converse launched a web tool that lets you design your own sneakers.
You can select colors on a large number of elements and colors or patterns for the three biggest canvases of the sides and the tongue.
They also let you “tag” your creation with some text on the side or back.

The three steps that I have spelled out for UDD (User Driven Design) are good for breaking down an application but can also be used to help us rate how strongly they have executed on each step.

I have given some ratings below. There is not much in terms of “seeding” though you can add your tag.
If I could upload my own pattern or image that would be the ultimate seed even if they charged me more to do so.
Probably expensive to execute on that.

The steps and the tool itself are polished, smooth and easy to use. The pull down selector scrolling is a bit wonky and its not clear there are more patterns than first appear, but the refinement steps are strong.

Lastly the selections seem to express themselves well in the output and designing your own sneakers is just great, so high marks there.

Its all very exciting to me and a big step in the right direction. The release of this to the public and the heavy advertising they are doing also seems like further proof to me that a large amount of retail is going to migrate in this direction.

I just bought some new Chucks yesterday but I may have to get another pair just for the sheer joy of designing a pair myself!